The Senior Metropolitan Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka has directed the Anti-Corruption Commission to submit its probe report by 31 January 2027 in a high-profile corruption case against deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, her sister Sheikh Rehana, and former bank association chief Nazrul Islam Mazumder. Judge Shahjahan Kabir fixed the new date after the anti-graft watchdog failed to present its investigative findings on Thursday.
The case stems from an investigation initiated on 3 September at the Anti-Corruption Commission’s Integrated District Office, Dhaka-1. Investigators allege that the accused colluded to unlawfully siphon 276.34 crore taka from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds of 41 scheduled banks into the private coffers of the “Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Memorial Trust”. Charges have been framed under Sections 409 and 109 of the Penal Code, 1860, alongside Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, citing criminal breach of trust, abetment, and abuse of public office.
Founded by Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana in September 1994, the trust designated the former prime minister as its lifetime president, with her sister designated to assume the role in her absence. However, preliminary inquiries revealed that the entity maintained no physical office or legitimate operational footprint at its registered address. Furthermore, the organisation lacked standard registration with both the Department of Social Services and the NGO Affairs Bureau, raising suspicions that it operated primarily as a front for financial misappropriation.
Investigators revealed that Nazrul Islam Mazumder, in his dual role as Chairman of Exim Bank PLC and President of the Bangladesh Association of Banks (BAB), leveraged the executive authority of the former prime minister to pressure commercial lenders. During executive committee meetings, Mazumder introduced off-agenda items to mandate CSR contributions to the trust, subsequently issuing formal demand letters specifying contribution figures to member banks.
This systematic extraction directly breached established regulatory directives. Monetary circulars issued by Bangladesh Bank in June 2008, alongside its comprehensive 2022 CSR Policy Guidelines for Banks and Financial Institutions, strictly dictate the permissible avenues for corporate philanthropy. Direct allocations to private or unregistered trusts fall completely outside these legal parameters. By forcing 41 banking institutions to divert 276.34 crore taka into an unapproved trust, the accused are alleged to have inflicted severe financial loss on the state and the national banking sector. The court’s extended deadline now gives investigators additional time to examine the paper trail left by the transactions.
